Warning II: Older post that I typed up a couple days ago and still want to post

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sneaze

It really is one of those things where if we make that the case 90% of Exhibs will end up being just that because people want to be edgelords and brutalize opposing 'mon.

There are plenty of reasons why you may want to play Realistic. Here are a few that stood out to me beyond "Edgelording it":

Different kind of strategy - less emphasis on "smart" gameplay and efficient use of resources and more on mechanics and intelligent targeting of critical areas

The feel of being an impactful giant monster who can squash your enemies

Serious consequences to falling, crushing, and biting that complicate what are otherwise straightforward battles

If people are complaining about losing Realistic, it's not because they miss brutalizing their pokemon. Nobody even likes the Pokemon Center requirement, that's a fucking chore and it's better off gone. Nobody wants to kill pokemon, etc. If that were the case, we'd have people yammering about "Hyper-Realistic mode" and saying "I want to play a game mode where I can fucking kill my enemy pokemon."

As people were saying earlier, having a pokemon die is nothing more than a setback anyway. It's not like this is Nuzlocke Pokemon Battle Simulator, where you have a limited and predetermined set of Pokemon you can encounter and capture. So when you're looking at why people like Realistic, you're looking explicitly at the injury part.

With that in mind, here are my suggestions for phasing out Realistic mode:

Environmental damage is codified and buffed, with fall damage becoming a real threat and something to watch out for

Moves that deal with strength or size are adjusted in damage scale, preventing large and strong pokemon from being too overbearing while still allowing them to use that size as a direct advantage

These mostly just keep things fresh on a per-battle basis, as well as to shake things up at higher levels of play. It's not a strong change, but it makes big monsters more fun to play while introducing ways to play around them...and the best part is that it doesn't really affect newbies too much, since TL1 and TL2 are full of small, light, not physically powerful pokemon.

Crits in most games are a way to introduce RNG and keep things fresh. RNG is a way to leave things up in the air. However, ASB is a direct-competition environment, and luck elements can feel unfair and ridiculous. This is why we don't have crits.

My proposed solution is to have crits represent broken bones, cuts, and other Realistic effects. In Slapstick you'll only hear "Aim for the ______" if you're using Ice Beam or another freeze move on a flying type, or if your enemy has a Crush Claw or burned zone. However, in Realistic, you'll have people aiming to crush a pokemon's leg, slash their wings, drop them, do all sorts of things to physically hurt them so that they are less effective.

Landing a crit would reduce mobility in the affected area or take advantage of a vulnerable zone to do extra damage (the way Slash works now, but more broadly). The second is something we already do, especially for pokemon like Shuckle, but it would become part of the official rules.

Crits would be tied into the exhaustion system. It's more intuitive and realistic than the current tiredness system, and less punishing to newbies who see "You can use 2 attacks per round" and decide to use 2 attacks per round. Exhaustion would remain in its current form for moves like Hyper Beam and Giga Impact. This would prevent crits from being RNG related - it's all left up to the ref whether the pokemon was able to strike the area it aimed at, as well as what the effect on that area was, based on exhaustion and the move/pokemon in question.

We could also tie status effects into the crit system, with high-energy pokemon more reliably applying and/or resisting status. It's a little bit like how you have to breathe in the Stun Spores or Sleep Powder, but codified and broadened.

Bottom line: If there is something that people would miss if Realistic left, the obvious solution is to add it into Slapstick.